UPDATE: 27 dead, including 18 children, in shooting at Newtown elementary school (LIVE UPDATES AND GALLERY)

Young children wait outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after a shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, December 14, 2012. A shooter opened fire at the elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on Friday, killing several people including children, the Hartford Courant newspaper reported. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin

NEWTOWN — At least 27 people -- including 18 children -- were killed Friday morning at a local elementary school, marking the deadliest shooting ever in Connecticut and one of the worst ever in the country.

The shooting happened at about 9:40 a.m. at Sandy Hook Elementary School, officials said. Authorities said the shooter has been killed.

Three people were being treated early Friday afternoon at Danbury Hospital. It wasnt immediately clear how many others were injured.

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Sarah Walker Carson, a former New Haven Register reporter, said her young son, Will, was in the school at the time of the shooting.

“I’ve never been more terrified in my life,” she said. “My heart was pounding. I couldn’t race fast enough (to the school).”

Walker Caron said she believes authorities are “doing the best they can.”

She said that she had only heard rumors at this point, and could not confirm them, but she had heard that there could still be children in the school.

Mergim Bajraliu, a student at Newtown High School, 17, has a sister, 9, who is in fourth grade at the school.

They live nearby and he heard the shots and went to the school before most of the responders arrived to get his sister, and saw a police officer carrying out a little girl whose body was limp.

“The cop was just carrying her and she was leaning back. It was very traumatizing,” he said.

A reporter observed three state troopers with canines walking around the woods nearby, and parents leading their young children away from the scene.

The state police major crime squad van is on the scene. Four or five helicopters hovered overhead.

Many parents walked down street holding hands with their children.

“I heard what happened on the news, and I just headed here to get my son,” said a mother, Maria Nascimento.

Audra Barth, another mother who has two children at Sandy Hook Elementary, “The parents were given no information. I was just at home going crazy. I didn’t even know which school it was. I found out from media.”

Luie Munguia, 8, a third-grader at the school, said, “I heard gunshots; I was under a desk with three or four other people.” He said police then came in. Luie said he did not see anyone who got hurt.

He was walking with his mom, Lindsay Sweeney, and grandmother, Kathy Sweeney

“It is surreal, like something out of a movie. I heard a child didn’t make it. I’m just praying for everyone,” Lindsay Sweeney said.

Richard Wilson, 36, of Sandy Hook, said he and his wife were home when they got the call that there was a shooting at their son’s school.

Their son, Richie, 7, said the gun shots sounded like “really loud pots were banging.”

“It’s the most terrible moment of a parent’s life — you have no idea,” Richard Wilson said.

Police told reporters to stay out of the woods and stick to the road. Officers with weapons drawn were stopping cars and questioning motorists. They looked in car windows in a nearby parking lot.

State police spokesman Lt. Paul Vance says they have a number of personnel on the scene to assist.